While all the world's press are busy confirming Keith Stanfield's undisclosed role in the Wingard directed Death Note movie, we can tell you precisely what part the Straight Outta Compton actor will play.

At 11am British time (June 13th 2016), tipped off by dozens of sources that the actor's place on the cast list was now official, Death Note News editor Matti popped on over to his Twitter account to follow him.

Just in time to find Keith Stanfield sneaking in a live feed dancing to a tune of Big L - his finger making that familiar Lawliet mononym shape.

Moreover, that live stream had been retweeted by Adam Wingard and was a mere 39 seconds old. Within a minute it was all gone, deleted from its Periscope.TV host, the Twittersphere and cyberspace as if it had never been.

But for our screenshot, of course.

Could he get more blatant? Apparently yes! As - we're calling it - Death Note's US L actor Keith Stanfield added two more Tweets to fill the void left by his missing live stream. One posted three days ago; the other just now.

Reproduced below, the first read simply 'Hold this L', while the latest retweeted 'Perception is key' - a three year old message (dated September 13th 2013) from @thefirst L, the apparent Official Twitter of L from Death Note. An RPer who right now probably can't believe their luck!

What added impetus - or dissolution - this development brings to the current raging debate regarding the white-washing of Wingard's Death Note cast remains to be seen.

Keith Stanfield is patently not a Protestant White American - as per the overwhelming norm in actor ethnicity shown large upon Hollywood screens. Then again, neither is Nat Wolff, an actor of Jewish heritage cast as Death Note protagonist and L's opponent Light Yagami.

However neither are they Asian (or Asian-American, as the case may be), which is the real flashpoint in this on-going controversy.

As tipped for you in our April 7th 2016 post, Netflix has indeed secured the rights to make the US live-action Death Note film. It's now known that the budget for Wingard's movie will be in the vicinity of $40-$50 million.

While also breaking hot news implied by that headline and all previously discussed above - Netflix officially cast Keith Stanfield in Death Note, as per previously strong rumours reported here last month.

Death Note's director Adam Wingard has been making announcements too vis-à-vis additions to the movie-making team. This one was via Twitter and informed us that Jason Eisener has signed up as 2nd Unit Director.

Poor thing. This must be so exciting for the Canadian director of Hobo With a Shotgun, V/H/S/2 and ABCs of Death. I can't help but imagine that his addition will be a little lost amidst the clamour about the US film's casting of L. Particularly as both public heads up came on the same day.

But Eisener didn't get a nice Variety article. Merely an admittedly 'very excited' Tweet from Adam Wingard, and a mention here from us.

Latest Production Information for Death Note Film

What Jason Eisener's appointment implies, as director of Death Note's second unit, is that there will be at least two sets running concurrently. (Prevailing rumour whispers that there will eventually be three.)

This development in the technical film-making side of things is borne witness is the latest update from the Directors Guild of Canada (download PDF, dated June 10th 2016), which otherwise doesn't add a great deal to what we already reported at the beginning of May 2016.

To spell out what that means - while Wingard oversees the action at one Death Note filming location; Eisener will be in charge of the other. Double the opportunity for Death Note fans to oops-a-daisy accidentally wander into the movie shoot, and get themselves forcibly ejected by security or constabulary.

Hopefully with pictures and/or gossip, which we'll happily share.

Filming on Death Note kicks off in Vancouver on June 29th 2016. It is currently due to finish on August 30th 2016.

There seems to be a touch of the Mikami about this new Death Note character - a Kira aping Supreme Judge to be introduced in the fourth of the movies, out in Japan this October.

Eiichiro Funakoshi has been cast as Kenichi Mikuriya, one of the owners of a shinigami notebook in the movie Death Note: Light Up the NEW World. He picks up his Death Note after six of them fall to Earth on Kozuki Night and chaos reigns a whole lot harder.

As a high-ranking judge, it might expected that Mikuriya would hand his notebook immediately over to the appropriate legal authority for them (in this case, Tsukuru Mishima and his Death Note Countermeasure Headquarters Special Team). However, the Supreme Judge as better ideas. Rankled with the slow progress of the law, and with the occasional iniquity and unfairness of it too, Mikuriya determines the way forward to be embracing a more 'sophisticated' brand of arbitrating justice, i.e. him using the Death Note where the courtroom fails.

We can't help feeling that we've heard rhetoric like this before. You know, from Light, L, every Wammy ever, Mikami...

And ok! Mikami was a mere prosecutor, not a Supreme Judge, nor was the lawyer technically a Death Note owner. But the distinction would have been lost on any of those many thousand of names that old Teru over-dramatically scribbled into his own (borrowed/bequeathed) Death Note pages. We've had an L clone and a Kira imitator announced (plus the originals back in the forms of Misa and Matsuda), so why not Mikami.

Now bigger and better and much, much darker. Deleting along with his forerunner and the best of them.Death Note: Light Up the NEW World will be out on October 29th 2016.

Death Note's Misa Amane had to give up half of her remaining life span in order to see the future.

The actress who voiced her in the original Japanese anime - Aya Hirano - only has to go to sleep.

Misa-Misa's foreknowledge was limited solely to the Fated death dates of all humans within her view. A fact that she was usually due to change anyway. Meanwhile the precognitive scope of Aya, who played her, knows no limits.

It would seem that the seiyū wins this round of preternatural skill acquisition and application.

With many a fan in conversation and the occasional interviewer too, Aya Hirano has told how she was born with her psychic gift. An hereditary clairvoyancy shared by her mother.

Precognition (or intuition - her rendering in Japanese as 特技 予知 could be read in English as either) was even listed in early profiles of the actress as one of her skills, alongside playing the piano and calligraphy.

Aya Hirano and her mother have predictive dreams, which later transpire to play out in reality.

Not quite the vision supplied by shinigami eyes, but I'm sure that both ladies are very grateful for that, preferring their version of The Sight over that suffered by poor Misa Amane!

Posted during

I'm afraid it's official - Kim Hasper has indicated that he will be unable to send us his responses to your questions.

It's been so many years since he voiced Light Yagami, he simply cannot return to the mindset and/or recall enough details necessary to address what you asked.

The German dub Death Note anime actor apologized for dropping out so late in the day.

Back in February 2106, during the inaugural Month of Kira event, Death Note News readers were given the chance to pose questions to him. Collected up and presented en masse, these jointly formed this promised interview.

In fairness, Kim Hasper accordingly received over one hundred queries. All duly translated as requested, but with some delay after personal issues suddenly - and understandably - took precedence for our translator, Jojo.

Another willing German speaker had to be sought quite quickly to tackle those questions still requiring re-interpretation from the English. In reality, more than one person stepped up, contributing translations as a team effort orchestrated by the amazingly multi-lingual Lua Cruz. (She also translated a portion of your questions into Spanish for Sergio Zamora!)

All's well again too with Jojo now - it was she who took the message from Kim Hasper that he'll sadly have to give this interview a miss for the above stated reasons. Also Jo who liaised with him offering further assistance, but unfortunately had to receive his apologies to pass on to you all.

Naturally we at Death Note News hope you won't be too disappointed at this news.

We are still expecting replies from Brad Swaile and Sergio Zamora; while our interview with Vincent Tong is already in the bag, not yet public only for want of some video editing expertise behind the scenes here. But coming. We promise that it's coming soon. Video editing software lessons are occurring.

With her role as Misa Amane looming, Margaret Qualley has signed up for another part to fill the gap before filming Death Note.

She has joined the cast of Sidney Hall, a movie currently being shot in New York City.

Starring Logan Lerman and Elle Fanning, its plot revolves around the eponymous Sidney Hall, author of a book about his own generation, who then disappears without a trace.

So a little like Light Yagami then! Who notably exhibited penmanship in a book too; the impactful contents of which could equally be read, in a fairly abstract way, as a commentary upon the world as he experienced it - rotten - and who also vanished and hasn't been seen since.

Margaret should be able to pick up some nice tips for her forthcoming performance as Misa Amane.

Meanwhile Margaret Qualley is one of the stars of another movie out right now, which also has some distinct Death Note links.

Ex-Death Note director Shane Black's The Nice Guys went on general release in the US on May 20th 2016. It's a neo-noir, crime/mystery comedy with buddy elements too; written by Anthony Bagarozzi, who was behind one of the earliest screenplay drafts for the US live-action Death Note movie. He still retains a credit for it, though Jeremy Slater has since reworked his script.

Margaret plays Amelia Kutner in their movie - a missing woman, who demands to remain missing and even hires a heavy to ensure that continues to be the case.

Unfortunately, Amelia's implicated in the reappearance of a dead woman, now more alive than her funeral suggests that she should be. Hence the sudden pursuit.

Finally, Margaret has the final season of The Leftovers to complete, then she'll be free to take on Misa Amane when filming begins in Vancouver, Canada, on June 22nd 2016.

A tip-off had been sourced from an 'insider', but no-one at Netflix was available to take repeated calls to query its veracity.

Nor yet the second shared insight. This was that Death Note was nearing production, when Warner Bros decided to end years of dilly-dalling by pulling the rug at the 11th hour. But that bit was obvious. It didn't take a Wammy level genius detective to deduce its truth. This was the only scenario which could account for the studio hiring director and stars for its cast; then suddenly sitting down at the negotiation table with Netflix, now poised to secure Death Note's production rights for itself instead.

A little out of left-field and accordingly met with surprise by the Death Note fandom, with no little wide-eyed pondering upon the implications.

Most fan comments clocked by Death Note News staff on balance seemed relieved that our tale was out of that studio's hands. Few had really trusted Warner Bros executives in the US, since Black exposed their desire to show Light Yagami muddled, angst-ridden, but fundamentally a good guy, whilst getting rid of Ryuk for Satanic overtones vis-a-vis shinigami.

Now Netflix appeared (and remains so at the time of writing) to be making the Death Note movie; and, if Thom Geier of The Wrap has it right, bringing favoured actor Keith Stanfield into the project too. Though nothing of the sort can be verified until the ink is dry on that deal documentation.

Which leaves fans of Death Note musing upon two big burning questions for the moment:

Will Netlix release Death Note (US movie) in theaters/cinemas, or stream it only?

Who will Keith Stanfield be playing?

With Light - and Misa - already taken, the field is wide open. It could be any Death Note character at all (though the likelihood falls dramatically regarding roles amongst female dramatis personae). In considering it, watch Keith Stanfield in action and see if a name presents itself. Then please do comment with your suggestions. We might be the first to call it!

Miles Ahead Trailer - Keith Stanfield Starring as Miles Davies (2016)

Has he the gravitas to be Soichiro Yagami perhaps? Though, thinking about it, that might raise questions about whether Light (aka Nat Wolff) is really his biological son. Aizawa?

On a global scale, Misa-Misa has been dubbed, played and in some instances sung into life for the delight of Death Note audiences everywhere.

In honour of her monthly event on Death Note News, we have collected together the names of the twenty-one Misa Amane actresses from Death Note adaptations across the world. Who for you, amongst these ladies (and one gent), wore the face or spoke the voice of Misa the Second Kira?

Aya Hirano

Voice Actress(aka 平野 綾, Hirano Aya)- Death Note anime Japanese original- Death Note: Relight: Visions of a God Japanese original- Death Note: Relight: L's Successors Japanese original

Shannon Chan-Kent

Voice Actress- Death Note anime English dub- Death Note: Relight: Visions of a God English dub- Death Note: Relight: L's Successors English dub

Posted as Part of

Warner Bros Japan has confirmed that Sota Aoyama will return to play Tōta Matsuda in the latest live-action Death Note movie, due for release in October 2016.

This will be considered fantastic news by many fans, for whom he IS Matsuda in any live-action capacity.

Aoyama last wore the face of that young, irrepressibly enthusiastic and famously foolish police officer ten years ago, featuring in the cast of Death Note (2006) and Death Note: The Last Name (2006).

The role also earned him a place in the spotlight starring in Spin-Off Matsuda - a movie short, little known outside Japan, released in conjunction with L: Change the World (2008).

It seems that this live action Matsuda is a glutton for punishment, as a decade on from all that trauma, he's pictured apparently back on the Kira Task Force taking on another six Death Note owners scattered across the world.

Though his presence could also be in a mere advisory/consultancy role. It's impossible to tell from a couple of still photographs, issued as teasers without context (see below).

The news that Sota Aoyama is reprising his Death Note acting role comes on the back of two other announcements, similarly regarding actors familiar from the first movies. Erika Toda is also on her way back - signing up to return to her role as Misa Amane - while Shidou Nakamura will be voicing the newer, darker, scarier CGI shingami Ryuk. All in glorious continuity of those earlier, decade old Death Note films.

Death Gods aside, Matsuda constitutes the only remaining person privy to insider information about Kira the first time around and able to share it now. It can be presumed that Ryuk won't be taking sides, finding it more amusing (and diverting) to observe the action as entertainment from the sidelines.

While in the movie timeline, Misa's memories of the whole Kira case (give or take her love for Light Yagami) were wiped at the end of the last main instalment.

Mind you, the Japanese National Police Agency'sDeath Note Countermeasure Headquarters Special Team seems rather more populous than its counterpart from a decade earlier, the Kira Task Force. The new base doesn't look too shabby either, as the two pictures below may attest. Still in that Death Note de rigour colour scheme of monochrome with a touch of red, so beloved of every version ever.

Someone's desk. In shades of black, white and just a hint of orangey-red. Probably belonging to one of the pair here getting all testosterone-y with each other - Ryūzaki and Tsukuru Mishima. Actually, undoubtedly so, as one of the pictures above shows Mishima standing behind that desk, as he almost is here too.

These movies stills from Death Note: Light Up the NEW World were sanctioned by Warner Bros Japan, but made it into the public eye via an intrepid Death Note fan and writer for Natalie.mu, who 'sneaked' onto set - in an undisclosed Japanese location - on May 18th 2016 and witnessed the above scenes being filmed. In addition to managing a quick interview about the movie and their roles from the two actors seen sizing each other up in character above, Sousuke Ikematsu and Masahiro Higashide.

Read more about that here: 映画「デスノート」対策本部に潜入、東出昌大と池松壮亮がプレッシャー語る (Natalie, May 18th 2016) If, of course, you read Japanese or can stand Google Translate's attempt at a native transcription. Otherwise one of our Japanese translators will hopefully be along soon to tell us all about it.

A theme park in Osaka will be taking day-trippers into the Death Note universe with L right alongside to ensure no-one gets themselves killed.

Because he was always so good at that...

Universal Jump Summer marks a collaboration between Weekly Shonen Jump and Universal Studios Japan. Running throughout the summer months of 2016 at the latter's tourist attraction, the event will bring to life major characters from manga and anime.

That includes Death Note detective L, who'll be recruiting rookie investigators (that'll be you) to accompany him through a role-playing, puzzle-solving, live action game entitled Death Note: The Escape. It will be built on the back of other Death Note themed Real Escape games, that have been running in cities around the world to mark the manga's 10th anniversary.

Additionally, the theme park will regularly host theatrical performances featuring another stalwart of the genre. One Piece Premier Show 2016 tells a story especially written for the event.

Unfortunately, visitors to Universal Studios Japan will have to pay extra to enjoy either of these anime-based attractions. However, their general admission price allows for free access to the third one - Dragon Ball Z: The Real 4-D. Not too much further information there, other than our hero Goku will be fighting the evil Frieza.

Yeah, whatever. Our lot will be with L, taking on the truly nefarious designs inherent in a locked door. And if you don't think that's dangerous, then you seriously never read Another Note. Hold on. Ok, so our guide looks like L. Fine. But someone must have double-checked his jam eating propensity.

The audition site Casting Call has an opening listed for singers amongst the Death Note fandom to flex their tonsils for a cover of The World.

Vocals can be in English or Japanese and the project appears to be some kind of anime cover album or play-list.

Before anyone gets excited thinking they're going to be on an official Death Note music release - otherwise in one of the forthcoming movies - let us reiterate here that this is a fan created project. Yet no less wonderful for that.

There's scope for another Death Note tune to be covered, if you'd prefer. As the call out lists the opportunity to record instead the anime track of your choice. Other tunes requiring singers include:

Fight Together from One Piece

Super Driver from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Memories of You from Persona 3

Never More from Persona 4

Irony from Oreimo

Yowamushi na Honoo from Yowamushi Pedal

Let Me Hear from Parasyte

One Reason from Deadman Wonderland

A track from Bleach has already been cast.

Deadline is May 6th 2016. Anime vocalists may be male or female, but must own a good microphone through which to record their work. For more information visit audition listing itself - ﻿Casting Call Club: Anime Cover Singers Needed!﻿

A new still released for Death Note 2016 reveals the terrifying face of Ryuk - re-imagined for this latest movie. It's all the shinigami as we know and love him, but darker, sharper and somehow much more gritty.

Death Note's creators did say that this would be the darkest iteration of the on-going story yet.

Further news to make fans cheer is today's announcement that original Ryuk voice actor Shidou Nakamura has signed on to provide the voice for this version too. Nakamura's tones are familiar to the Death Note fandom from the anime through to the earlier movies in the series: Death Note; Death Note II: The Last Name; and L: Change the World. Jun Fukushima took over for the TV drama.

Matti might be Editor-in-Chief of Death Note News, but she's better known elsewhere - writing under the unfortunate moniker of MRSJeevas - as the author of the It Matters series of Death Note fan-fiction novels centring upon Mello and Matt. To encourage other fan-fiction writers to submit their stories for these Month of events, she's been drifting out of her comfort zone to write short stories and drabbles on whatever character is our monthly focus. This time around, she's finally back on home ground, writing about a Wammy. In fact, THE Wammy. Enjoy!

The Quartermaster Quest: A Drabble Upon the Dreams of Quillsh Wammy

Everybody wanted Aston Martins these days; all drinking Martinis, shaken not stirred. But they were missing the point. Seduced by the flash and swagger of James Bond, seeing no further than the bravado and charm. Fleming's character had daring, that much was true. Plucky fellow and all that. But it was born of arrogance and the bankroll to fund it. The protagonist's sense that he was too elite to die; not through any true talent. Bond had just enough intelligence to follow his privileged past into an assumption of immortality. False trail. Shoddy thinking.

His imitators thought hedonism set Bond apart from all those other two-bit classy spies - that seemed everywhere from the pulp fiction piles to the silver screen in these days of escalating Cold War news. Ubiquitous in the background; sparking a backlash frenzy of unimaginative fashionable writers pandering to their half-asleep readership. No, the real thing that elevated Fleming's work wasn't Bond himself, but the gadgetry he carried on him.

And that wasn't Bond, James Bond, at all. That was the truly exciting position held by Q. The inventor(s). Bound by nothing but the outer reaches of his - or their - own imagination; boundless really in its lack of brevity. The creative force behind the flashy tapestry of the spy's rich world. Godlike in that way. So mysterious too, that single letter to denote a being controlling Fate from the background.

Q. Like Quillsh. His own first name. Thrilling to it the first time he read Casino Royale - 'see Q for any equipment you need' - twenty-two and suddenly knowing precisely what he wanted to do. Join the British Secret Service Q-Squad and invent things to save the world.

Only the reality wasn't like that at all. He was in. His family connections saw to that. But there was no Q-Squad in MI6 like the novels promised. Just order requisitions in triplicate; more paperwork than vision could withstand. No figure of Q as strode gloriously withdrawn into the shadows of the movie plots inspired by the books. Merely Quillsh Wammy labouring under the surrender of disappointment with petty bureaucrats (and worse, politicians) dictating his work-life with rigid demands. Tedious in their scope. No room for innovation. No Q. Not even a Bond. Just people who wished they were the latter and thought an Aston Martin purchase, celebrated with a Martini, could cut it for themselves.

The field guys called him Q and thought it funny. Wammy enjoyed the shivery honour of the title, at first; then realised the joke was on him and disdained them for it. People whom Wammy wouldn't trust with the key to the office petty change box given free rein with the treasury of Britain. Most of them raised to start wars, not intercept their onset and divert into harmless channels. Playing at national security as they'd arranged their tin soldiers in childhood. Like it was all a game.

It was the way they were raised. Q mused. Those with the wealth and connections to be here weren't those with the common touch to understand why they should change the world. Improve it. Make it safer. Most of them breed out of brain cells several generations back. Too lacking in much beyond what was and what should always be, in their opinion, immutable; and unfair.

In bitterness, Quillsh tried to tip the balance in his own small ways. Bypassing the limitations of that stack of requisition forms by letting his mind soar into the stratosphere of inventive bliss. Becoming the Creator. Q in actuality, not just name.

That earned him a final warning and quite a few dressings down for wasting public funds. So he did it in his own time. Wasting his hours on wandering through ideas, akin to Da Vinci in their scope, and enjoying them immensely. Then finding and patenting one, then more, that stood out as genuinely useful.

Of all the weird and wonderful, it was a tiny stop-lock that made him rich. In his own right wealthy beyond his uncle's wildest dreams. That sour old man for whom money and its acquisition had always taken the place of feeling or reaching further than himself. Who'd raised Wammy in name only as guardian; the reality being boarding school, held back for the holidays, as his uncle found it too distracting to have a child at home. Except for Christmas break, which was achingly boring and way too formal. Quillsh blocking out droning talk of the stock exchange and investment banking with mechanisms of the imagination, built silently as excitement, or diversion to replace the love lost with his long gone parents.

Uncle William was interested in his nephew now. Fascinated in fact, in his prospects and his bank-account. Lectures on the best stock in which to invest at the present time - naturally brokered through himself - didn't get more alluring with adulthood. Uncle William's interest being solely in the interest that could be due.

While Wammy's remained entirely with the Quartermaster.

The first orphanage founded was to thwart Uncle William, and to teach him something too. A little reaching out in assuage of his childhood; plus amusement. So many startled agents learning that power in riches didn't need to come with Martinis on a yacht; the Aston Martin waiting; an endless supply of fine foods and alcohol; the ladies dripping in all they could grab. Power came best in the adulation of young minds under his control, to cater for and educate according to Wammy's wealth and whim.

Such things confused them. Which suited Quillsh just fine. For he was an orphan and so was James Bond. A fact that seemed to miss them entirely. Maybe one day a young Bond might pass within his warden watch; and he could be Q.